


Hope, the Liar

by murg



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (this should all be expected i mean), Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Self-Esteem Issues, Trans Katsuki Yuuri, Trans Male Character, Trans Minami Kenjirou, Transitioning, Transphobia, Unreliable Narrator, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 16:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9193196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murg/pseuds/murg
Summary: “You may be the greatest male figure skater in all of Japan,” Viktor says, “but we’ll never know, will we?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t follow the episodes perfectly or recite conversations, etc. Just FYI. The story has a lot of flaws, but I wrote this for fun over the course of three days. I only ran a cursory edit. I’m always very nervous about posting new stuff, but what the heck. Might as well.

Yūri wipes his face, staring at the harsh light from his phone. His mother’s name, and the call button. He doesn’t press it. He can’t press it. He rubs at his eyes, taking deep, shuddering breaths. He tries to move, but every time he does, there’s a triplet beat in his heart, spearing into his head like a needle. I fucked up. My dog is dead.

My career is over.

It’s all over, I fucked up, my dog is dead, my career is over. My dog is dead. My dog is dead. My dog is dead.

He chokes on his fist.

The door slams open.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Plisetsky, junior male division Russian skater, hangs off of the stall door like a gargoyle. The lock clatters on the bathroom floor. No sound escapes Yūri’s throat. He hates himself, desperately.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

He blinks through his tears, brain dead.

“Get out of the men’s room, dumb bitch,” Plisetsky says, spitting around the words.

Yūri doesn’t stand, shoes skittering over the toilet bowl.

“You’re a shitty skater,” Plisetsky says, rubbing his arms. “Get the fuck out of competition if you’re going to be such a pussy about everything. You were embarrassing, out there.”

Yūri has no idea what Plisetsky’s damage is. He doesn’t think about it too hard, brain cluttered with three things too many.

“I’ve seen your interview,” Plisetsky says. “The one from a few years go.”

The statement bounces off, numb and hollow. Yūri doesn’t care about that. He’s too embarrassed to feel anymore embarrassed.

“You’re a cow,” Plisetsky hisses. “Maybe you’d be half as good as me if you weren’t so busy whoring for attention like that.”

He cups his hands together, against his aching chest.

Plisetsky is silent, looking at him. He snorts, standing up straight. “Skating isn’t the place for mediocre crybabies. This is an elevated sport, not some reality television gig for weepy girls,” he says, and he leaves.

Yūri stares through the open stall door, at the urinal opposite him. Plisetsky’s right.

Plisetsky’s right.

It’s time to go home.

He doesn’t call his mother.

It’s time to pack up and go home.

Plisetsky’s right.

\- - -

Katsuki Yūri is the greatest male figure skater in Japanese history. Kenjirō’s willing to defend that statement to his last breath. Luckily, he doesn’t have to. He usually only gets about two minutes into his well-rehearsed tirade before his opponent--the slanderer of the much-beloved Katsuki Yūri--gives up.

He’s built his whole career--his whole life--around Katsuki. Katsuki, whose stuttering breath told American media that he was “planning a sex change.” Katsuki, who slapped his face and glowered at his shoes after the statement, four years ago.

Kenjirō’s watched the interview more times than he can care to count. The cavalier way Katsuki says it, stumbling a little with still fresh English, covering his face after his flippant bravery. Kenjirō has his gestures memorized.

More importantly, Kenjirō has his entire routines memorized. It’s a crime, that Katsuki still skates Women’s singles, an absolute crime, Kenjirō complains, but he still watches and he still memorizes every routine. Katsuki trounces all his competition, and he always climbs to the podium with red cheeks and confused eyes. Humble, Kenjirō thinks. Katuski isn’t just brave, he is humble.

The Grand Prix was bad, even Kenjirō admits that, but every hero has a slump. And it wasn’t so bad, not as bad as Katsuki’s face suggested after his performance. It was less than Katsuki’s usual standard. It wasn’t pathetic, though, just. Not so great.

And that’s okay.

Kenjirō owes a lot to Katsuki. To Yūri. It chokes him up, when he thinks about it, sometimes, because he can’t imagine how everything could have gone, if he hadn’t found the courage to live his life. If he hadn’t heard Katsuki Yūri’s stuttering interview, wiping sweat out of his eyes and growing frustrated with the questions and their well-intentioned presumptions. A din of voices crowding over him. Until he just. Told them he wasn’t a girl.

He can’t imagine how else Katuski could have felt.

He’s amazing, Kenjirō, thinks. He’s an icon, not just for people like Kenjirō, but for skaters everywhere. He’s an amazing human.

\- - -

It wasn’t an interview. It was a one-off statement, after he qualified for Skate Canada. He didn’t know why he said it. He was high on adrenaline and he was sick to his stomach. He wasn’t being rational.

It hasn’t been too much of a thorn in his side. The controversy died down after about six months. Neither Celestino or his parents ever talked to him about it.

Plisetsky said he was an attention whore.

Yūri wonders if he’s right. He cringes, face crushed against his window. He doesn’t think he is. He wants everyone to leave him alone. Forever.

He wants to dig his fingers into his stomach, and pull himself out of his body. Step out of his skin suit and walk off, into the ocean, never to be heard from again.

He wants to be better than he is.

A cleaner, more loving individual.

The tree branches shutter against the window pane. He sighs, fingers drumming against his stomach. He wishes his mother would knock on his door. He knows she won’t. He knows no one will. He’s glad no one will.

He’s... He’s glad.

\- - -

With nothing left, he slides onto the ice. It haunts him, that he could be someone better than his self. If only for a few minutes. He feels like he is Viktor Nikiforov, as he bends, gaining momentum, jumping through his aches.

He can hear Yūko sigh, when his heart rate lowers. “You’re amazing,” she says, clasping her hands together.

“No, I’m not,” he responds, on autopilot.

She frowns. The girls blow him kisses. He stares at them, uncomprehending. He looks back up at Yūko.

“You should go to sleep,” she says, voice softer. “You look beat.”

“I just want to skate.”

“You look really tired, Yūri.”

“I just want to skate,” he repeats, aching deep under his ribs.

Yūko gives him an indiscernible look.

He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. That familiar, sharp gnawing. Dog jaws snapping on his bones, clamping down and inflaming his chest and back. He’d sooner die than stand up straight.

Dog jaws.

Dog.

He rubs his face.

“I need to sleep,” he says to his fingers.

“Yeah,” Yūko says, arm light on his shoulder, pulling him off the ice. “Yeah.”

What would I be like, if I weren’t so unlucky, Yūri thinks, bleary. Would I be the greatest male skater in all of Japan, if it weren’t for chance? Would I be the greatest male skater in all of the world, if it weren’t for circumstance? What a waste of potential. Pathetic.

He knows he has no potential, though. He’s abysmal on every front.

“Go to bed,” Yūko says. She claps him on the back.

He shakes, the pressure stabbing into his ribs.

Yūko frowns.

Yūri turns his face, picks up his bag, and leaves for the locker room.

\- - -

He’s ready to throw up as Yūko smiles sheepishly.

He’s mortified.

“You can’t just. Do that,” he says, stilted with burbling hysteria.

“I didn’t know!” she says. “My girls are being punished, trust me.”

He rubs his face, shaking. “I’m so embarrassed.”

“Why? You skated great!”

“It’s not about how I skated, I don’t care how I skated...”

He sighs, his breath wracking his body.

“Please take it down.”

“I will,” she says.

“Thank you.”

“Yūri...”

“What?”

She steps back, staring at him.

He rubs his face. “What?” he asks again, softer.

“You really haven’t been doing well.”

“Well, my dog is dead, I fucked up at the Grand Prix Finals, my career is over, and you recorded me imitating a Viktor Nikiforov routine,” he says, pressing his hands into his face. “A routine that I also totally fucked up. So no, I’m not... I’m not doing that great, at this second, no.”

Yūko doesn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” he says. “I forgot myself. I’m sorry, Yūko. I didn’t mean that.”

“You should go to bed.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I should. I will. Bye, Yūko.”

\- - -

Vi-chan is in the living room.

Yūri leans down to give him a pat and freezes.

His eyes slide up to the doorway. His mother smiles at him.

There’s a man, walking up to the entrance.

Yūri rubs his eyes, head light.

“Hello,” Viktor Nikiforov says, grinning. “Yūri? I would like to be your coach.”

Yūri rubs his eyes again, Nikiforov still in front of him, Makkachin still below him, his mother still smiling. He can’t remember ever meeting Viktor Nikiforov. He can’t remember Viktor Nikiforov ever meeting him. This is the first time they’ve ever met, and Yūri is dressed in day-old sweats and his face is getting red and he needs to salvage this first impression, desperately.

He throws up and collapses onto his elbows.

Fuck.

\- - -

His mother makes them katsudon. Yūri isn’t sure why--he hasn’t done anything particularly impressive, lately (or ever)--but he takes it. He can hardly swallow, when Nikiforov won’t take his eyes off of him.

“I don’t understand,” he says, quickly, chopping his words up. He doesn’t want his mother to understand him, but her English is quite good at this point.

“I want to be your coach,” Nikiforov says. “I saw your performance of my routine, and I was very impressed.”

Yūri swallows, staring at his food. He fidgets, rubbing his fingers together.

“I think that’s a. A bad decision.”

“You think you know what decisions I should make?”

“No! Never, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry!”

Viktor shakes his head, smiling with humor. “I was joking. No, I think it’s a very good decision. That’s why I bought a plane ticket all the way to Japan. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

No one would buy a ticket from Russia to Japan just to laugh at him, Yūri tells himself. He’s not that important to laugh at, anyways.

He really needs to stop thinking things like that. It’s unkind to Viktor.

To Nikiforov.

His skating idol.

Yūri sits up, thinking about his room, still plastered with pictures of Nikiforov from before he left for Detroit.

“Are you alright?” Nikiforov cocks his head.

“Y-yes,” he says, clenching his fists on the table. “I, uh. I have some. Cleaning to do.”

“Alright. I’m excited to be your coach, Yūri.”

Yūri bites his lip, standing up. He sways, hating the way Nikiforov looks at him. He wishes Nikiforov would look anywhere else. He clears his throat.

“When, uhm. Would we start that?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That’s soon.”

Nikiforov points his chopsticks at Yūri. “You need to get fit, again. You’re fat.”

Yūri flushes, screaming at himself inside. He pushes his hands in front of him, wringing his wrists. “Okay,” he says. “Uh. Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Eight o’clock!”

“Yes, eight o’clock,” he says, nodding deeply and forcing his legs to walk to his unfortunately decorated room.

\- - -

Yūri sits on his bed, ragged. He is painfully aware of the physical space between him and Nikiforov. _The_ Nikiforov, Viktor Nikiforov.

He wonders if Nikiforov thinks of him as a woman.

He cringes, burning with shame. He banishes the thought. Too painful. So painful, he prefers any other disastrous imagination. He turns his attention to the space between them, again. He turns his thoughts toward his soft, fatty thighs. It’s preferable, but still painful. But still preferable.

He feels so disgusting.

The space between him and Viktor Nikiforov.

He forgot to strip one of his photos of Viktor from his wall, by his desk. Little picture, of his first Worlds. Yūri lies back on his bed, his eyes stuck on it. He wonders if Viktor could fix everything in his life. He wonders if Viktor could save him. Save him from what, though. Yūri isn’t sure. He can’t articulate it. Things don’t work like that, anyways. It’s never that simple.

But still. He’s always waiting for someone to save him. That’s Katsuki Yūri. That’s what Katsuki Yūri does. Waits for someone to save him from something. Mediocre and insecure, waiting for divine intervention. Pathetic.

The interview burns his face. He closes his eyes, seeing Viktor’s photograph.

It really wasn’t an interview. Just a one-off statement.

He isn’t an attention whore.

He isn’t. He just didn’t want them to talk to him anymore. He just. He was just really tired.

What’s changed.

\- - -

“She’s my little girl,” Mrs. Katsuki says, wiping the table.

Viktor watches her, uncertain of his place in the home. He isn’t a guest, but he isn’t a friend. He decides to stand there, with his hands at his sides, and smile. “He has a lot of potential as a skater. He can be a great skater, with good training.”

“I know,” she says, furrowing her brow, “but I still worry about her. She’s never been very happy. She isn’t a happy person. I worry. No matter what she does, that she’ll be not happy.”

Viktor doesn’t say anything.

Mrs. Katsuki sighs. “My English is terrible,” she says. “Sorry.”

“Your English is very good.”

“I have learned it for Yūri.”

“Mm.”

“I love her, you know.”

“I understand.”

Mrs. Katsuki keeps wiping the table. “I support her no matter what she does. Because I love her. I only want, you know, I want her to be happy.”

“Of course.”

“But she’s never been very happy.”

Viktor doesn’t say anything.

Mrs. Katsuki doesn’t say anything, either.

“Yūri lacks confidence,” Viktor says. “I really want to work on that.”

Mrs. Katsuki looks at the table.

“Where will I sleep?” Viktor tries a change of subject.

She looks up, straightening her back. “Follow me.”

\- - -

Practice with Viktor Nikiforov is difficult. He expects Yūri to be a lot stronger than he actually is, and it frustrates him. It’s more difficult than it was with Celestino or Minako.

“Of course it’s more difficult,” Viktor says, snatching Yūri’s water bottle from his hands. “You’re drinking too much.”

“I’m thirsty,” he gasps.

“Anyways, of course it’s more difficult. Your old coaches had you doing different routines, because you were skating for Women’s singles.”

Yūri freezes, fingers tightening on the edge of the rink.

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” he says, carefully.

“I’ve been having you do my routines. You noticed?”

“Yes, I noticed.”

“It’s not like you haven’t been practicing Men’s almost since you started skating.”

He scrutinizes Viktor, at that. Viktor furrows his brow, under his gaze. “How do you know?”

“You told me,” he says, scratching his head.

Yūri doesn’t think he’s told Viktor anything like that. He shrugs. “Alright,” he says.

“Am I wrong?”

“No,” he says, “you’re not wrong.”

“Then there’s no problem,” Viktor says, smiling.

“No, I guess not.”

“Now, get back out there. And don’t drink so much, you’ll get sick.”

Yūri skates back out, forcing his eyes away from Viktor’s face. “Right.”

Right.

\- - -

Yuri Plisetsky sneers at him, hanging off of the doorway like a. Well. Yūri doesn’t like to repeat his thoughts, he does it too much as is.

“Yuri!” Viktor says, grinning.

“Come back to Russia,” he says.

Viktor laughs.

Plisetsky says something in Russian.

Viktor laughs again.

“Why don’t you come in?” he says, nodding inside. “Yūri, could you go grab your mother? I think we have another guest, if that’s alright with her.”

“Uh...” His eyes crawl to Plisetsky, and back to Viktor. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah.” He turns tail and goes to the kitchen, where it’s a little safer.

He can hear Plisetsky screaming in Russian, though, and Viktor laughing.

\- - -

“She’s-- She’s not even the best figure skater in her _town,”_ Plisetsky complains, railing against the wall.

Yūri watches him throw his temper tantrum. He watches sheepishly, because Plisetsky may very well be right.

Viktor only smiles. That’s all Viktor ever does.

Plisetsky always insults Yūri in English, because he wants Yūri to understand that he is insulting him. Yūri knows this. He thinks about how he knows this. He aches, humiliated.

“He’s currently my prospective trainee,” Viktor says. “If you want me back in Russia, you’ll have to win me back, Yuri.”

Plisetsky scoffs. He says something quickly in Russian.

Viktor laughs.

Yūri doesn’t allow himself to be curious. He feels embarrassed, that he doesn’t speak Russian. He’s never had an opportunity to learn Russian, he reminds himself, but he still feels embarrassed.

Viktor turns to him. “I’ve decided to hold a competition between you two.”

“What?” He cringes at his own voice, notices Plisetsky’s eyes.

“Yuri wants me to go back to Yakov, and I’ve decided that instead, I’ll hold a competition. And see which of you performs my choreography better.”

“O-oh...”

“Yuri,” he says. “What do you want, if you win?”

“I want to drag your ass back to Russia, so that I can win the Grand Prix!” Plisetsky says, all brassy stance and legs apart. Yūri watches him with some level of envy. But also. What _is_ Plisetsky’s damage. He still doesn’t think about it too hard.

“And Yūri,” Viktor says. “What do you want, if you win?”

He won’t win. That’s his instinctual response, of course. But he holds that back, on the tip of his tongue. He studies Viktor’s face, his easy smile, and he hurts, inside. He wishes he could smile so easily. He wishes he could be uncomplicated. He wishes he could be uncomplicated, with Viktor. “I want to be able to eat katsudon with you,” he blurts, loud and overly emotional.

His voice rings around the ice rink.

He looks down, unable to see Plisetsky’s disgusted face.

“Alright,” Viktor says.

He looks up, at Viktor’s smooth face. He searches his eyes for degradation and finds nothing.

He feels strangely bereft, at that.

“I have two choreographies,” Viktor says. “I’ll show you both.”

\- - -

Katuski Yūri just keeps rising to impossible heights in the world of skating, doesn’t he? He does, Kenjirō chatters to anyone who can stand to listen. Viktor Nikiforov--yes, _that_ Viktor Nikiforov--was so impressed by Katsuki that he flew all the way from Russia--left his own team--so that he could coach Katsuki! Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that incredible? A real power couple!

It was bound to happen, considering. And it has happened!

Kenjirō tells his parents, and they tell him that’s nice, but they don’t understand. Not many people do, outside of the people he skates with. And they’re happy. They’re tepid, they’re confused, but they’re also happy. Why? they want to ask.

Why doesn’t concern Kenjirō so much. There are plenty of possible whys. After all, it’s Katsuki Yūri they’re talking about. The greatest figure skater in Japan. Of course Viktor Nikiforov would want to coach Japan’s up and coming.

Kenjirō wonders if that means Katsuki is going to skate Men’s singles.

There’s no telling, probably not this year--Nationals is in eight months, after all--but Kenjirō can’t help but hope. Katsuki can skate Nikiforov’s signature, after all, with little to no training.

So Kenjirō can’t help but hope.

\- - -

Yūri was never one for Greek mythology. Or emotion. Good emotion, anyways. Eros ties him up in knots of embarrassment. He can’t look at his own body when he showers; he can’t stand the thought of being an object of desire.

He stares at the fabric in his hands, uncertain. Aching. Heart beating around his ribcage, prowling near the bars like a tiger.

Male and female. He wants to cut the skirt part off and stuff it in his mouth, chew it up and spit it out.

He shakes his head. Overdramatic and stupid.

“It’s not about being an object of desire,” Viktor says, his accent fuzzier with food in his mouth. “It’s about seduction.”

Right. That. Yūri balls his hands into fists against his mile-wide hips. He’s not in the business of that.

“It’s a story, that you act out,” Viktor says, “but I’m also playing to your strengths. You’re very good at emotive skating.”

Is he? He doesn’t feel like he’s good at anything.

“You’re a playboy, wooing women off their feet. It’s about desire. Is there something you want? Take it. That’s the idea, Yūri. You just need to find your inspiration, your idea of Eros. It’s not about being wanted. It’s about _wanting.”_

A playboy.

Viktor fumbles with his chopsticks, having momentary difficulty with the pork. Yūri licks his chapped lips. He’s very hungry.

He wants to eat katsudon with Viktor.

He wants a lot of things in his life, though. Doesn’t mean he gets any of them.

But he wants to eat katsudon with Viktor.

\- - -

Yūri is going to throw up. Again.

He throws up too much. It’s embarrassing.

Viktor kneels down to tie Yūri’s skates. It’s awkward in its intimacy. It shouldn’t be intimate, he reminds himself.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he says.

“Of course you can. Just do what you did in practice.”

He snorts. “Oh, fall on my ass? Right.”

Viktor stands up, wiping his knees. “You’re really not what I expected you to be.”

“What does that even mean,” he mumbles.

Viktor shrugs.

“I’m going to throw up.”

“Do you want me to get you something?”

“No.”

“Yūri,” he says. “If you lose, I’m going back to Russia with Yuri Plisetsky. You understand that, right?”

Yūri sighs, bringing his fist to his mouth.

And he will lose.

He will lose. That’s what he _does._ That’s the Katsuki Yūri brand. Losing whenever he needs to win, whenever he has no option. Simpering, pathetic, unstable, mediocre, feminine. He sniffs, wiping his eyes.

Viktor stares at him.

“Yūri, this isn’t the place for crying.”

Skating isn’t the place for mediocre crybabies.

“Yūri, please.”

And what is Yūri, but a weepy girl.

“You need to get a fire lit under you, Yūri! Come on, please, this is your chance to show Hasetsu how great of a skater you are.”

“It’s not like that,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t need you...throwing some...some stick and carrot in front of me. I’m not some dog, Viktor.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? You’re hardly easy to motivate--”

“I just need you to have more faith in me than I do!”

Viktor opens his mouth, but no sound escapes.

Yūri wipes his face. “You’re a bad coach,” he groans.

Viktor wraps his arm around Yūri’s shoulder and pulls him against his side. “I’m sorry,” he says, low and sincere. “I believe in you.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he sniffs, growing more annoyed than anything. “You just. You just need to believe in me.”

“Okay.”

“Just don’t say anything!”

Viktor shrugs.

Yūri wipes his face, scowling. A handkerchief presents itself under his chin. He snatches it and blows his nose, wet and loud. Disgusting. He must look like a damsel. He hates it.

“Just skate,” Viktor says. “Just skate the skate you want to skate.

“You’re a playboy. You take what you want. So go and take what you want. Do what you want. Be what you want.”

“I don’t want anything,” he says, hollow.

“Then do what you do. And be what you are.”

Eros.

No, he’s not Eros, he reminds himself, hysterical. He’s nothing.

“Just skate,” Viktor says. “Just do that.”

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll do that.”

\- - -

Eros is the story of a princess who becomes a playboy, Yūri tells himself as he skates to the center of the ice. She’s had her heart broken too many times, and she’s decided she doesn’t want to have it broken anymore. Ever again. She’s lives in such a fragile body, which lends itself to such a fragile heart. And she can’t live with a fragile heart, because if it breaks one more time, she will surely die.

Not quite. Viktor told him it’s a story about seduction, he reminds himself as he calms his heart and waits for the music.

It’s about taking what you want.

And what do you want.

He widens his stance, pushing his shoulders out.

What would he be like, if he weren’t so unlucky.

He can pretend, out here, that he isn’t so unlucky. That he’s better than he is. That he’s handsomer than he is, that he’s surer than he is, that he’s free of discrepancy. That he’s human.

If he weren’t so unlucky, he could win any woman’s heart. He could win anyone’s heart. He could be intelligent, and charming, and funny, and attractive. He could have anyone he wanted and then cast them aside. He could have anything he wanted and then move on to whatever he wanted, next, never stopping, never satiated. He could devour whole worlds, if he weren’t so dreadfully unlucky. If he weren’t wrapped in chains from birth, he would be entirely too powerful to handle. He would be the greatest male skater in Japan.

He wraps his arms around himself and poses, breathing. Sweat tickles his hairline.

Viktor is screaming, jumping up and down by the barrier.

Yūri watches him, chest heaving. He smirks.

\- - -

Yuri Plisetsky is nowhere in Hasetsu when Yūri stares at the people-- _his_ people--grinning at him a hundred-fold mouths. He blinks, dumb with shock.

“It was no contest,” Viktor says to him, patting him on the back. “You’re a much more experienced skater. I think Yuri saw that, as well.”

Yūri blinks at the flashing phones, snapping photos of him. He thinks of his body, outlined in Viktor’s tight outfit, and he tries not to wilt.

“Yūri?”

“I’m hungry,” he says.

Viktor pats him on the back again. “Alright,” he says. “Then let’s eat.”

\- - -

“I’m a boy,” Yūri says, in the darkness of the living room, his feet warming under the kotatsu.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Viktor says, leaning over his notebook. “You’re twenty-three years old, Yūri. You’re a man.”

His fingers curl over his ankles, rubbing the skin.

Viktor looks up. His eyebrows lift. “Is something wrong?”

“I want to skate Men’s singles,” he chokes.

Viktor doesn’t say anything. It’s so dark, quiet, like the night is a thick blanket settling over them. Like the night is strangling the breath out of Yūri’s lungs. Drowning deep in ocean water, dark as the sky.

“I see.”

“I know I can’t,” he says, words squeezing out of his constricting throat, jumbled and tripping over each other. “I know it’s--it’s--it’s. It’s, I know.”

Viktor sets his notebook aside. “Yūri,” he says. “Look at me.”

Yūri looks at him. He forces his eyes back to Viktor, every time they try to crawl away.

“How long have you been putting off this sex change?”

He flinches at the word choice. Remembers the gap in their language. Remembers the gap in his own standards. “I’m not putting off anything, I--”

Viktor gives him this look. Yūri deflates, fiddling with his hands, ringing around his ankles.

“It hasn’t been a good time to do it, yet,” he mumbles.

“I’ve seen the interview, Yūri. The one, where you say want a sex change.”

He covers his face, groaning. “That wasn’t an interview.”

“A statement.”

“A statement.”

“Four years, Yūri. Why?”

“Never a good time,” but he can’t say it with any real conviction, with Viktor’s eyes boring into him.

“You have a disturbing lack of confidence,” Viktor says, each word like a sliver under Yūri’s skin. “It’s as though you set yourself up for failure.”

Yūri closes his eyes. So dark. He imagines suffocating himself with a plastic bag.

“You skate like a man. You know this, right?”

He doesn’t say anything. Imagines the suffocation.

“Yūri. You make a lot of excuses for yourself.”

“I will humiliate my family,” he says, cringing with this new excuse. Because Viktor is right, it is an excuse. But it’s true.

“Why does that matter?”

“It just does.”

“You’re scared, but you do not even know the outcomes.”

“Forget it,” he mutters, staring at the table top.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to forget it?”

He sniffs, hates himself for it. Hates himself for it. Viktor says he skates like a man. He can’t even talk like a man, he doesn’t skate like a man. He doesn’t. Viktor is either deluded or patronizingly kind and Yūri is afraid of which is the case.

“Nothing is ever a good time for you, is it?”

“No,” he agrees, quiet.

Viktor laughs, a harsh sound. A knife gutting the darkness. He isn’t laughing at Yūri, but some insidious part of his brain (all of his brain) tries to twist it, to make it seem like he is. “You may be the greatest male figure skater in all of Japan,” Viktor says, “but we’ll never know, will we?”

The darkness bleeds, dripping down Yūri’s chin.

“I am not trying to be unkind.”

“I know,” he agrees, quiet. He knows. Dripping down his neck.

Viktor leans forward, closing some of the distance between them. His elbows knock against the wooden table top. “Yūri. You can skate Men’s singles.”

Yūri stares at Viktor’s elbows, his mouth dry. He can only manage, “I’m not qualified for Men’s singles.”

“Not yet. You need to compete at Nationals before we can look forward to the Grand Prix, of course.”

“I don’t understand,” he says, because he doesn’t.

“I’m going to help you find a doctor,” Viktor says. “I’m going to train you. And we’re going to enroll you in Men’s singles at Nationals.”

Yūri stares at him, Viktor’s skin and hair and eyes ghost-like in the low light. He feels like he’s in a dream. Like he’s talking to a dream creature. It’s the only thing that lends him courage. “When would we start that?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That’s soon.”

“It’s over four years too late.”

“Twenty-three years too late.”

Viktor says nothing. Yūri watches his face shift with curiosity. His dream coach’s lips tug, his eyes grow distance in the darkness. “Yeah,” Viktor says, hushed. Humbled. Worried. It doesn’t suit him, does it, Yūri thinks. No, it doesn’t.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why do you apologize so much?”

“I don’t know.” Yūri shrugs. “I’m just. Sorry.”

“You know, Yūri? I’m sorry, too.”

Yūri doesn’t say anything. He fiddles with his ankles, heavy inside.

Viktor pulls his notebook back toward him and he leans down to write. Yūri watches him, in the darkness. He thinks he should ask Viktor if he needs a light. He doesn’t, though, because it is so quiet, here, and so dark, here.

He watches Viktor’s form, white all over, a ghost in his house.

Tomorrow.

He slumps onto the table and watches Viktor’s white hand move across his paper, until his eyes sag shut.

\- - -

“I don’t like calling it a sex change,” he mumbles.

“I just know that’s what you called it.”

“Sure, four years ago.”

“What do you want me to call it?”

“I don’t know, different things feel okay at different times. I’m being difficult, aren’t I?”

“I don’t know if you are,” Viktor says, deciding between two shirts to take out of his suitcase. “I’m not familiar with your situation, admittedly.”

“Me neither.”

“Words aren’t important,” Viktor says. “Anyways. I’m here for you. Words are just words. I will help you become the skater you are meant to be.”

Thank you, Yūri wants to say, but it feels too awkward. It’s a strange, pathetic thing to thank someone for. Doing things he should have done a long time ago.

“I’m a transsexual,” Yūri says, fidgeting with the sleeves of his hoodie. “That’s the word I like. I like that word. It’s the proper word.” He feels stupid, then, because Viktor just said words don’t matter and _that’s_ what Yūri decided to reply with, as though he didn’t even listen to Viktor at all--

“Okay,” he says, “then you’re transsexual. We’ll call it that. No problem.”

“Thank you,” Yūri says, drained.

“No problem.”

Viktor picks out a shirt.

“The train leaves in twenty minutes.”

“We’ll get there in less than ten. Don’t worry so much, Yūri. I’ll just throw this on.”

“Okay.” He fidgets. “Seriously, thank you.”

“No problem.”

“I feel like a problem.”

Viktor hums, muffled through the fabric. His head pops out the top, looking at Yūri. “Just because you have problems doesn’t mean you’re a problem.”

He shrugs.

Viktor shrugs back, exaggerated.

“Are you making fun of me?”

He just smiles.

Yūri punches his arm. “Don’t,” he says. “I’m not funny.”

“Oh, you’re deathly funny, I’m afraid.”

“Whatever. Come on.”

Viktor apes a shrug again, following behind him.

The air feels good on his face. His fingers jitter, like frantic spiders, tapping against his pants, as they walk to the train station.

I’m hopeful, he realizes.

“I’m hopeful,” he says.

“That’s good,” Viktor says, waiting for Yūri to read out their platform. “Hope is good.”

“Is it? I feel like it just leads to disappointment.”

“And has not hoping prevented any disappointment?”

Yūri hums, walking. Viktor catches up to him, clipping his heel.

“No answer?”

“No, I guess it hasn’t,” he says. “But I try not to think about that stuff very much.”

“You’re a very complicated fellow,” Viktor says.

“Well, I wish I were uncomplicated.”

“I’m glad you’re complicated.”

“Well, at least someone’s happy with the situation.”

“No, not like that. That wasn’t my smoothest line.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Forget it.”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Viktor side-eyes him.

Yūri grins, strangely giddy, tapping his thighs.

\- - -

“She asked me if I used it,” he says, looking into his hands. “But I never used it. So I just. Never answered.”

“You should ask her to make you another song,” Viktor says.

“Did you just hear what I said?”

“Yes. So?”

“I can’t talk to her! I don’t even have her email, anymore.”

“Do you know someone who does?”

He shrugs.

“You do, don’t you?”

“Phichit.”

“Excuse me?”

“A friend, from Detroit. Not from Detroit, I mean. I met at Detroit.”

“You should ask him.”

“Okay,” he says. “I will.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I will. I’ll do it.”

“When will you do it?”

“This weekend.”

“That’s six days away.”

“So?”

“Why don’t you text him right now?”

“I am,” he says, pulling out his phone. “I’ll... I’ll make it work, Viktor.”

“I really want you to have an active role in your routine, Yūri,” Viktor says, leaning over his knees. “This is your debut, after all.”

“My debut,” he repeats, the words settling in his mouth like marbles.

Viktor sets his hand on Yūri’s shoulder, dry and heavy. Comforting. Yūri examines the sensation in wonderment. He’s never felt secure in the hands of another person. He’s avoided it, whenever he could.

But he feels okay, right now. He feels safe. He feels respected.

He opens up Phichit’s contact.

He hasn’t texted him back in over a month.

_Hey Yūri! :) Hope everything went good with the doctor and stuff. I’m so excited for you! Let me know if you want to talk._

Awkward.

He concentrates on the outline of Viktor’s thumb, dulled through the fabric of his jacket.

_Hi, Phichit._

He sets it face down on his thigh. It buzzes.

_Hi Yūri!!! I haven’t heard from you in AGES! What’s up? :) :) :)_

He swallows.

He types, _I was wondering if you wanted to video chat some time. I wanted to catch up. I also have a question about the music student we knew in Detroit._

_OK! I can talk tonight! Oh wait. 20:00 EDT, sorry. Time zones. :/ Does that work? I can talk about her, sure. No problem._

He types, _Yes_ and pushes it back into his pocket.

“I’m talking to him tomorrow morning,” he says.

“Alright,” Viktor says. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

But it was hard, Yūri wants to say. It was really hard.

There are harder things, though, he knows.

The ocean slouches and recedes, gumming at the sand.

Viktor’s thumb rubs his shoulder in slow circles.

A careful, easy intimacy. Yūri feels safe, he reminds himself. Slows his heartbeat, tells himself: I feel safe. I feel safe, here. I am at home, I am wrapped in home, and I am safe. Phichit is my friend and Viktor is my coach.

I am loved.

It feels like a stale lie, but he repeats it. I am loved. I feel safe. I am loved. He closes his eyes, concentrating on the scrape of the ocean and the gentle weight of Viktor’s palm.

It almost feels true.

\- - -

“Hi, Yūri, how’s it going?”

“Good,” he says into his sweater sleeve, sinking into his chair. “How’re you?”

Phichit’s low resolution cheeks bunch up. “Is your voice deeper?”

“No,” he says, irritated. He becomes irritated at his own irritation.

“I think it sounds deeper.”

“Well, it isn’t.”

Phichit shrugs. “Alright, then. How’re you?”

He searches through his bin of neutral phrases. “I’m okay.”

“I’m good, thanks for asking.”

“I was going to ask.”

Phichit laughs. “I know you were, calm down.”

“You’re going to China?”

“Yeah, I am. I hear you will be, too.”

“Well,” he says, fiddling with a pencil, “if I win Nationals.”

“You will,” Phichit says, with a certainty Yūri both admires and abhors.

“I hope so.”

“You will.”

Yūri doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry to bring it up again, but I’m really happy for you, Yūri.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s working out, right?”

“Yeah. Viktor makes me do a lot of flexibility and weight training and I hate it.”

“That’s good, though.”

He shrugs, looking off to the side. At the picture of Viktor he still hasn’t taken down. Crinkled around the edges.

“You seem better, Yūri. Really.”

“I feel better,” he mumbles, looking into Viktor’s eyes.

“Yeah? Like you’re making progress?”

“Sure.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Only two months.”

“That’s a lot!”

“I wish I could take longer,” he confesses. “I don’t feel like I’m there, yet.”

“Physically or mentally?”

“Both.”

Phichit doesn’t say anything. Yūri looks down at his hands. He hates how small they are. He curls them up, into fists. Stares at his bones, straining against the skin.

“Hey, Yūri?”

“Yeah.”

“I wish things were better for you.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re a great skater,” he says. “I’m not just saying that because I’m your friend. I really respect you, as a skater, Yūri. Everyone does.”

“Phichit?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you... Hey, do you remember that time I picked out my own music?”

“The commission you never used? Yeah.”

“Do you have her email?”

“Yeah, you want it?”

He swallows. “Yes, please.”

“Are you doing your own choreography and stuff? I’m excited to see it!”

“Viktor and I are going to work on it, yeah.”

“That’s awesome, Yūri!”

He nods, his head feeling heavy.

He straightens his back, remembering four years ago. One stupid statement. Would she even want to talk to him, after that?

Phichit watches him. He doesn’t say it, though. He won’t. Too upsetting.

“You should email her tomorrow,” Phichit says.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, tomorrow.”

“That’s soon.”

“Well, you need to give her time to do it, if you want to be able to make and practice the choreography.”

He takes off his glasses and rubs his face. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re right, Phichit.”

“Do you want it to reflect your skating career, again?”

“Yeah,” he says, hushed. “I do.”

Phichit grins. “A song for your rise to the top of Men’s skating?”

“For my debut.”

Phichit ponders that. “Yeah,” he says. “It is your debut, isn’t it?”

“It’s going to introduce me to everyone,” Yūri says, “isn’t it? I think it is.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” Phichit pauses, writing something down. “Hey, can I talk to Coach Celestino about this?”

“Sure, I don’t care.”

Phichit looks at him.

“What? I don’t. I promise.”

Phichit shakes his head. “He already knows, anyways.”

“Yeah, I know. He never talked to me about it, though.”

“Well, you never brought it up to him, either.”

Yūri shrugs.

“He supports you, Yūri. He’ll be happy, to know.”

“Then tell him, I don’t care.”

“You can talk to him when you get to China,” Phichit says. “He’s been wanting to get in touch with you, you know.”

“Yeah, he’s called me a few times.”

“Did you actually pick up?”

“...No.”

“Come on, Yūri, he really cares. He’s excited that Viktor Nikiforov is coaching you.”

“I’m glad.”

“Oh shoot, it’s early there, isn’t it? I’m sorry, it’s easy to forget when I’ve been here for so long.”

“I get it,” Yūri says. “And it’s not that early. But I do have practice.”

“Alright. I’ll drop her email in the chat and I’ll let you go. Bye!”

“Thanks. Bye.”

“Oh, and congrats again!” he says, smiling.

“For what?”

“For the-- You know, for starting the sex change thing.”

Yūri shrugs, his lips tugging upwards. “Y-yeah. Uh. Thanks, Phichit.”

He waves back as he ends the call.

He rubs his face. _When_ he gets to China. It’s strange how everyone assumes he’ll just magically succeed, when he never has.

He takes the email out of the chat box and pastes it in a text file.

He thinks about leaving it there. He feels like he did enough, copying and pasting it.

He thinks about Viktor’s inevitable questions. Why didn’t you send her an email if you have her email? Why not send it now? Or after practice? Or--

He feels so tired.

He opens his email account. He rereads his message eight times, scouring for typos or potential rudeness. He sends it before he can let himself read it a ninth time.

He pulls himself out of his chair and pulls on his running sweats.

Viktor accepts nothing less.

Yūri doesn’t want to accept anything less, either.

\- - -

Viktor thinks it’s workable. That’s all that matters, Yūri thinks. It’s embarrassing, listening to it with him. It feels too intimate, closer than Viktor’s fingers over his jacket.

He tries not to think of it like that. Viktor doesn’t think of it like that, so Yūri can’t possibly, either.

He swallows, cringing. It hurts, sometimes.

“This is you,” Viktor says, firmly. “This is very good. It’s workable.”

Yūri finds it flattering, that Viktor thinks this is song “is” him. Viktor always acts like he knows Yūri, even though they’ve only been together--training, together, that is--for three and a half months. He wishes Viktor did know him, though.

Maybe three and a half months is enough.

“You’re getting stronger,” Viktor says. “I have a lot of plans for the choreography, but I want to run them by you.”

“It’s only been two months, I’m not that much stronger.”

“What? Oh, yeah. But you look better, Yūri. Really.”

He fiddles with the CD case. “I look the same.”

“You don’t look the same. Your jaw’s coming out. It looks good.”

He doesn’t see it. But then again, he doesn’t let himself look too hard.

“It’s called it Yūri on Ice,” he says. “That’s the song.”

“Self-descriptive.”

“Yeah...”

“No, that’s good.”

Yūri traces the case, thumbing the angles.

“I, uh. Thank you,” he says, clearing his throat. “For supporting me.”

“I’m your coach, Yūri. Of course I support you.”

“I know, but.” He furrows his brow, unsure how to finish the thought.

“I’m also your friend,” Viktor says. “I’ll always support you, Yūri. I care about you a lot.”

He looks up, at Viktor’s smiling face. He feels dreadful. He doesn’t deserve to have Viktor in his life.

“I don’t deserve this,” he says.

“Actually, you earned this,” Viktor says.

“It doesn’t feel like I did. I... I just.” But he can’t finish it, he still doesn’t know how.

“I owe you more than you can realize, Yūri.”

He mulls over that sentence and comes up with nothing. He can’t think of any way Viktor could ever owe him.

Viktor just smiles, but his cheeks are tight.

Yūri sighs, between barely parted lips, breath whistling through his teeth.

Viktor plucks the CD case from his worrying fingers. He turns it over in his lap.

Yūri watches his hands and says nothing.

They don’t need to say anything.

\- - -

Yūri throws up the whole night before Nationals.

Viktor yells at him from the other side of the bathroom door, about hydration and nerves and other useless bullshit.

He gags against the toilet, chunks of acrid chicken and rice stuck to his dry tongue.

I’m going to fail, he realizes. No matter what happens tomorrow, I’m going to fail. Look at me.

The door creaks open a few centimeters.

“I’m ugly,” he groans. “Don’t come in.”

“You’re in rough shape,” Viktor agrees. “I got you water.”

“Thanks.”

Viktor sets it on the sink. “You should take a shower and go to bed.”

“I would, if I could stop vomiting.”

He can feel Viktor hovering over him. Like some mother bird. He feels irritated and grateful, at the same time. He doesn’t want Viktor to see him like this, though, in a large sleep shirt and boxers, stinking and bruised under his eyes. He curls up, like a pillbug. His ribs ache, with the motion.

“Can I rub your back?” Viktor says.

“I’m gross.”

“Would you be okay if I touched your back, Yūri?”

“Sure,” he mumbles.

Viktor’s hand is tentative against his spine. He moves it in a wide circle, over Yūri’s shoulder blades.

It’s intimate. Yūri hates that he thinks that. He feels horrible and sick and his life is over and he’s going to fail tomorrow so what’s the point and why is Viktor even here, with a loser like him. His shirt keeps bunching up under Viktor’s hand and it makes him feel self-conscious in addition to the usual disgust that riles him up when he thinks about his body.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice tinny in the toilet bowl.

“Why are you sorry?”

“I don’t know, I just said it.”

Viktor doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t ask to pull Yūri’s shirt up and Yūri is grateful. He just smooths the fabric back out again, after he completes each circle.

Yūri rests his face against the toilet bowl, listening to the slide of Viktor’s skin against the cotton of his shirt.

He falls asleep like that, hunched over the toilet bowl, Viktor anchoring him to the ground with one hand.

\- - -

They’re both cranky, in the morning. Yūri’s ribs are partially inflamed, from sleeping in a bad position. He takes some ibuprofen and cringes through getting dressed.

Viktor has bags under his eyes. It doesn’t suit him. Yūri, guilty, says nothing.

They ride the train in silence, Yūri’s duffel bag separating their thighs.

There’s something vaguely religious about it.

The silence.

It reminds him of the night they agreed to do this.

Or Viktor talked him into it.

Or he talked Viktor into it.

He doesn’t remember, anymore.

Every time he slumps over, his ribs squeal. It keeps him awake. It’s minor, because he has dealt with this sort of thing before. It’s just annoying.

He won’t mention it to Viktor, though.

Viktor sleeps the whole trip.

Yūri feels warm, and awful, and ready.

For whatever is supposed to happen.

\- - -

He pulls first in the short program.

He groans, pressing his fists into his face, as Viktor hands him his jacket.

 _Of course_ he did. There’s no other way that could have gone.

“That’s tough,” Viktor agrees. “But you’ll do fine. You’re overqualified for Nationals, anyways.”

“I’ve never skated Nationals,” he keens.

“Yes, you have.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Always a first time for everything.”

He looks up at him, frowning.

“I’m not a bad coach,” he says. “You’re excessively negative.”

“I’m going to throw up.”

“Then throw up. I’ll grab you a waste can.”

Yūri groans.

His throat hurts. His ribs hurt. His head hurts. He has hardly anything in his stomach, anyways.

“I won’t throw up,” he mumbles. “I just feel like I will.”

“Then sit down.”

“I’m just going to stretch a bit and see if it goes down.”

“Alright,” Viktor says, patting him on the shoulder.

He swings his arms and takes paces.

“Katuski!”

Yūri turns to see Minami Kenjirō. Seventeen-year-old rising star in the Men’s singles. Yūri’s heard of him. “Hi,” he says, stiffly. His throat hurts, like a great big lump is settled in the middle of it, and he hates how he sounds. Like a little girl with a bad cold.

It will sort itself out, the doctor said.

“Hi,” Minami says, breathless. “I... I’m a big fan.”

Yūri blinks.

“I, uh. I’m just so excited to see you compete in Men’s singles!” Minami says, clasping his hands. “You’re the greatest, Katsuki.”

Yūri bites his cheek, trying not to scowl. Is Minami making fun of him? His stomach knots up. Roils with bile.

“You’re the whole reason I’m skating, I just. I just wanted to let you know. I hope this isn’t awkward!”

...

“Thanks,” Yūri says, cringing at his own lukewarm response. Was he supposed to say thanks? Or please or welcome or?

He can see Viktor, out of the corner of his eye, raising an eyebrow. He cringes deeper, like a kicked dog.

He looks back at Minami, hesitating, unsure what to say. He’s too stuck in his own head, frightened of performing. Frightened of everything. He doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t belong in Men’s singles. He doesn’t belong at Nationals. He turns and walks away, sheepish and ashamed. Minami doesn’t follow him. He’s glad.

\- - -

Viktor catches up to him outside the locker room. “Hey,” he says. “What you did back there? Don’t do it.”

Yūri blinks. “What did I do?”

“If you can’t inspire other people, you won’t be able to inspire yourself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That skater, he looks up to you. He wanted to talk to you.”

“I did talk to him.”

“No, you snubbed him.”

He fidgets, knocking his feet against the ground.

“You’re the best figure skater in Japan,” Viktor says, his hands on either side of Yūri’s arms. He doesn’t touch him, though. Yūri isn’t sure if he wants Viktor to touch him, either. “You have nothing to be afraid of, out there. You should be kissing babies, not scowling at people.”

“I wasn’t scowling--”

“If you want people to like you, you need to like them. You can’t expect them to like you when you already act like they don’t like you.”

“I don’t care if they like me or not!”

“Yūri, you seem to have this...this _delusion_ that people don’t like you. This is your home arena, you’re not going to ruin your reputation--”

“I don’t want to reflect poorly on you!” Yūri says, frustrated and scared and hating every inch of himself. “This is Viktor Nikiforov’s coaching debut, and his protégé is none other than Katsuki Yūri, mediocre Women’s singles tranny! I’ll be the laughing stock, of you and everyone!”

He can’t translate Viktor’s look.

There’s a fishing line of tension between them, connecting nose to nose, mouth to mouth, eye to eye. Yūri swallows the perpetual lump in his throat.

“I’m coaching _you,_ ” Viktor says.

“Yes.”

“This isn’t about me,” he says. “It’s all about you.”

Yūri casts his eyes to the side.

“I don’t think you’re mediocre, Yūri.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think I’m selfish?” he says.

“No.”

“Do you think I just... Laugh at people, at their expense?”

“No!”

“Then why do you think I would do that to you?”

“I...”

“Yūri, if you can’t be kind to yourself for your own sake, then do it for mine. I’m not some demon, feeding off of your misery.”

“I know, I never...”

“You never what?”

Yūri doesn’t say anything.

“Be nice to people, please.”

“I try,” he says, voice wavering. He swallows, fretting. He hates how frequently he cries.

He watches Viktor scan the hallway.

“You’re being really mean,” he says, discretely wiping his eyes. He sounds childish and he hates it.

“I’m not trying to be.”

“I’m tired.”

“Me too.” Viktor turns back to him. “Yūri. Of course I’d rather you don’t collapse out there, but I will stand by you, win or lose. If you’re a gold medalist or a...a preliminaries failure. You have to understand that. I’m your coach.”

Yūri sniffs. “You’re my coach.”

“And I believe in you,” he says, “more than you believe in yourself.”

Yūri closes his eyes.

He doesn’t feel secure.

But he wants to feel secure.

\- - -

He skates alright. Honestly, he does.

He might have even skated great.

But he didn’t, because he knows he didn’t.

But maybe he did.

Whatever.

What’s important is that he didn’t humiliate himself.

Eros is all about taking what he wants, but he doesn’t want anything. He promises. It’s hard to remember that, that he doesn’t want anything, sometimes, but he doesn’t.

Minami is very good. He’s only seventeen, but he’s amazing.

Viktor and Yūri both clap the polite amount when he finishes.

Minami’s a natural figure skater. Yūri wishes he weren’t so unlucky. If he weren’t so unlucky, he could have been like Minami, and gone to Men’s Nationals at seventeen.

Minami waves to him, at the end of his program. Viktor nudges him, so he waves back, dumbfounded.

\- - -

Yūri pulls third slot in the free skate. He wishes he had fourth, but that envied position belongs, yet again, to Minami Kenjirō. It’s better than being first, like he was for short, though, and Yūri is relieved.

Viktor pats him on the shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze around the joint. He doesn’t say anything to him.

That’s for the best.

\- - -

Minami sits next to him, as he ties his skates. “I almost killed myself when I was thirteen.”

Yūri freezes, stomach plummeting. “I’m so sorry,” he says, atonal and awful.

“Please don’t!” Minami says, waving his hands. “It’s. Complicated. But I didn’t bring it up to be sad or. This is weird, ha ha. I brought it up to thank you.”

Yūri twists his neck, staring up at Minami blankly.

Minami points to himself, beaming. “I’m transgender.”

Yūri stares at him.

“When you told everyone you were transgender, I saw it. I was thirteen. And I saw that you were a skater, like me. And I thought, oh wow! He’s such an amazing skater and he’s also transgender. Maybe I can do this, too! And if he could talk to the whole news like that, I can definitely talk to some doctors and some therapists and my parents, right? So I did that, when I was fourteen. And here I am!”

Yūri’s throat starts up. “That’s great,” he says. He feels very strange, off kilter. Like his voice is tinny and far away. Like he’s dreaming up this surreal situation.

Minami looks at him like he expects something out of Yūri.

Minami looks at him like his hopes ride on Yūri.

Yūri has never reacted well to that.

His eyes slide to Viktor, who has sidled further down the way.

He looks back at Minami’s wide face.

“I’m really happy for you,” he says and he means it.

“You’re an amazing skater,” he says and he means it.

“I can’t wait to see you skate,” he says and he means it.

Minami smiles, large and overwhelming.

\- - -

His heart thunders in his ears when he glides into the center of the ice. Minami’s smile threw everything off. He blinks, and he sees it. He feels choked up. His throat hurts and his ribs hurt and his head hurts, but he feels choked up besides those, too.

I am loved, he tells himself.

I am loved, he realizes.

It still feels like a cheap lie.

But just because it feels like a cheap lie doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

I am loved, he repeats, unfamiliar in his brain.

I am loved, he affirms, awkward and out of place.

I am loved.

I am loved.

Viktor smiles at him, full of reassurance and warmth, before the music starts.

Yūri closes his eyes and he skates.

\- - -

“You can’t do better than a personal best,” Viktor tells him at the kiss and cry.

“No,” he says, chest still heaving awkwardly with bulging inflammation, grinning so hard his cheeks ache with it.

Yūri can see Minami Kenjirō entering the ice rink, for his free skate. The last free skate of the competition. He gets out of the seat, his blade covers clattering against the concrete as he jogs to the sidelines.

“Good luck!” Yūri screams, voice ragged and ugly. He gets on his toes and he cups his hands over his mouth. “Good luck, Kenjirō!”

He doesn’t feel trapped in his own head, peering over heads and knocking into elbows, chest aching as he presses himself against the barrier. He doesn’t feel trapped in his own head, as he tries to reach Kenjirō’s eyes. Screeching with his dumb voice, he feels like he’s unspooling a thread, waving it to make some connection with another human.

Kenjirō looks up, scanning the crowd until he sees Yūri‘s waving arms. He glows.

Viktor’s hand on his shoulder, they watch Kenjirō begin his performance. Viktor's hand is separated from his skin by only a thin layer of fabric, holding him by the slope of his collarbone. Yūri blinks, eyes wet. His chest feels brittle, but warm. 

He feels human.

 


End file.
